Mike Koepke has noticed something interesting about the settlement of the Brian Pohanka (right) estate.You'll recall that Brian's widow Cricket asked mourners to make donations in Brian's name to the Civil War Preservation Trust in lieu of sending flowers. CWPT, is of course, the 800-pound gorilla among preservation groups and I have dealt harshly with them in these pages for quite some time.
It has been a very long quiet spell for CWPT: they partnered with National Geographic and Spotsylvania County earlier this year and then faded from the news, even as their membership skyrocketed from 50,000 to 70,000.
Now comes the news that Brian left $500,000 to his own Central Virginia Battlefields Trust ("Virtually every dollar you send CVBT goes towards purchasing and protecting America's heritage") and another $500,000 to the Richmond Battlefields Association ("The RBA board of directors are all volunteers and your donation will be devoted to buying the land that soldiers fought and died on").
The ethos of each organization decries paid staff and overhead. Neither expends funds for sites in Liverpool or Cherbourg.
CWPT got flower money. Brian seems to have made a statement.
(Update 3/14/06 - A bequest has come through - there was no statement.)
(Previous Pohanka posts here and here.)